Choosing a Writing Contest

by Tammy Mackenzie

Placing well in a writing contest can be a huge boost for your
career. Like a published clip, a contest win tells editors that
you are a professional who puts out high-quality work.
Unfortunately, winning a contest with a bad reputation or
submitting to a contest that is nothing more than a clever scam
can do more harm than good.

Choose your contests carefully. Deadlines, contact information,
prizes and guidelines change daily -- and many contests cease to
exist after one or two runs. If you buy a book that lists
contests, make sure that the information is no more than one
year old. If you're looking through online lists and classified
ads, make sure that the links are no more than two months old.
Take the time to follow links to web sites, or telephone the
contest coordinator listed in a book. Contest web sites should
have current deadlines, and a telephone call should yield an
informed response to your questions.

Once you've chosen a few likely contests, you need to examine
their reputation and legitimacy. Whether you're surfing a web
site or calling the contest coordinator, there are a few
questions you should get answers to before sending in your work.

1. Who are the judges? Judges should, at the very least, be professionals in writing or
publishing. A professional -- especially a well-known
professional -- is not likely to risk his or her reputation on an
illegitimate contest. Moreover, respected judges add weight to
your potential win.

2. How high is the entry fee? Most contests rely on the sale of anthologies to pay for
expenses, but some subsidize their prize with an entry fee. For
works of under 10,000 words, the entry fee shouldn't be higher
than US $10. Exceptions might be if the judge is especially
popular -- for instance, a high entry fee for a horror fiction
contest judged by Stephen King would be more acceptable than for
one judged by John Doe -- or if the prize is a very large cash
purse. Even the smallest contests pull in 20 to 50 entries. If,
at 50 entries, they would be earning ten times the prize they're
paying out, send your work elsewhere.

3. What is the prize? Prizes vary greatly from contest to contest. A contest that
offers only publication is suspect. A small contest offering
publication on the web site will not be much of a credit, and
there's a good chance that the coordinators are getting money
from advertising revenue. A contest that offers publication in
an anthology but doesn't give contributor copies or royalties is
also suspect. They collect all the revenue from the publication
of the anthology, and they expect to collect a lot of that
revenue from "winners" who want copies of their work. Cash
prizes should be proportionate to entry fees, and payable within
a reasonable amount of time. Under no circumstances should it
be the winner's responsibility to collect the purse in person,
or pay to receive it.

4. What rights are requested?bYou should never lose rights to your material simply by
submitting it to a contest. If your work doesn't win, you should
still retain all rights to it. If it does win, you may be asked
to license certain rights to the contest organization -- such as
the right to publish the work in an anthology or on a web site --
but you should not lose all rights. If a contest asks you to
forfeit the rights to your work if you win -- and especially if
it claims any rights to submissions, whether they win or not --
stay away!

5. Who are the past winners? Unless the contest is on its first run, you should have access to
a list of past winners. If it's feasible, try to contact the past
winners and ask them about their experiences. If you can't
contact them, ask the contest coordinator for references such as
professional writers or publishers, or writers groups that the
contest has dealt with in the past.

Entering and winning a writing contest can be a very gratifying
experience. When you submit, pay close attention to deadlines
and submission guidelines and edit your work carefully. As in
all writing, be patient. You may not win the first contest you
enter -- you may not win the tenth -- but that win will come with
persistence. Many contests offer critiques as an entry prize, and
you should take heed of the advice offered. Keep submitting, and
when you do win you'll get compensation for your work and a
valuable credit -- not to mention the satisfaction of being
declared the best.

Tammy Mackenzie lives in Montreal, Canada. She writes fiction
and nonfiction in her spare time. During work hours, she edits
anthologies and coordinates writing contests for Salivan Writing
Works. She also edits SageBase.com, a nonfiction article
database, teaches creative writing and manages a manuscript
editing co-op.